Fran Grossman

Frances R. Grossman, a community development expert, works with ACCION Chicago on the newly formed Chicago Microlending Institute, a first-in-the-nation program to train new nonprofit lenders to make microloans to Chicago’s smallest businesses as well as to capitalize their microlending loan funds.

For more than a dozen years, Grossman was an executive vice president at Urban Partnership Bank, the pioneering community development bank in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood that was formerly known as ShoreBank. Previously she worked for a decade in community development banking at Bank of America. She created, developed and managed the Community Development Banking group and the Bank of America’s Chicago Community Development Corporation. Grossman previously oversaw a neighborhood‐based community development corporation on Chicago’s South Side, taught in Chicago Public Schools and managed an after‐school and summer program in the Ida B. Wells Homes.

Active both nationally and in the community, Grossman serves on the board of directors for the Coalition of Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI), the Community Development Bankers Association and the National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders; locally she serves on the boards of Business and Professional People for the Public Interest, Chicago LISC, Chicago Metropolitan Housing Development Corporation, Mercy Housing Lakefront, and South East Chicago Commission. She recently served on a Blue Ribbon Commission addressing critical issues at Chicago Public Schools.

Ms. Grossman holds a master’s degree from the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration and a bachelor’s degree from Vassar College.